Warm and wet

It's getting warmer, but it's raining. I suppose that's better than freezing to death. The bloody baby shop we ordered the push chair and car seat from has not called me again. The thing was supposed to arrive the middle of last week, then on Friday, then Monday. I'm going to call them today. Maybe I've been away too long, but I don't remember service being this bad everywhere in Britain when I left.

The government is apparently concerned about the low conviction rate for rape in Britain. That is to say, rape cases apparently do come to court, but often end with no conviction. So in its wisdom, the UK gevernment is setting out new guidelines to encourage men to ensure consent is given before the act. I'm not sure what this means. I'd suggest that a signed statement taken before removing clothes might destroy the moment more than a little. The problem appears to be situations where the female is drunk, has sex, and then decides the following morning that she was forced into it. If this kind of case goes to court it inevitably hinges on how drunk the woman was and whether or not she was able to give consent. The possibility of changing the law to allow juries to make a judgement on how drunk someone was and whether they were in a position to give consent is being floated.

I have a problem with the whole idea of government getting involved in this. How can a jury judge, possibly weeks after the event, whether someone was so drunk that they couldn't give consent? How is a horny man, possibly also drunk, supposed to make the judgement himself at the time come to that? And one has to consider the crime itself. Two people falling into bed drunk and regretting it in the morning is a far cry from a man dragging someone into a public lavatory and forcibly having sex with them. It's really not the same crime. In my view, a drunk woman must accept some responsibility for a situation that wouldn't have arisen had she not made herself drunk. That's not to say that a man is free to take advantage of a drunk woman of course, or that getting a woman drunk is acceptable.

One other thing; according to a police survey, more than a third of women who reported being raped, admitted to consuming alcohol immediately before the event. I would suggest that warning women of the dangers of alcohol was at least as important as changing the law to make it easier to convict men who acted without consent. The cynical side of me suggests that the law makers are more interested in pushing up the conviction rate than preventing the crime. Clcik.

Yesterday the House of Lords defeated the government's ID card bill again by a very large majority. The Lords had said they would pass the bill if people could opt out of the scheme when renewing their passport. The government said no,
and the Lords has booted it out saying that the passport section goes against the Labour manifesto promise to keep the cards voluntary. I have issues with an unelected house of lords, but right now, they're the only thing keeping the most corrupt British government in history from running amok. Click.

I just rang the baby shop and they have our push chair, but it's not the colour we ordered. I can't actually remember what colour we ordered. They said it was green and the dragon says it was beige. It transpires that only black with red trim or just plane red is available however. I'm inclined to go with the black. I've sent mother in to pick one up anyway. She's got a good eye for colour, she won't let us down. Mother wants to come down and spend the day with the dragon on Thursday and perhaps one day next week. She feels she needs to play the part of real mother to her for a while I think, while her family is so far away. Anyway, she can bring the push chair when she comes.